


Breath from the Breathing

by taylor_tut



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: A prompt from my tumblr for Jon having a panic attack, the first one in a long time, during an argument with Tim, and Tim begrudgingly helping him through it :)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 233





	Breath from the Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking TMA hurt/comfort/sickfic/whump prompts so if you want to see me hurt Jon more, please don't hesitate to leave a request or idea in the comments or find me on tumblr (taylortut)!

Tim remembers a time when his reaction to Jon slicing his hand open on a piece of broken glass in the park might have been one of worry and sympathy rather than annoyance and, more upsettingly, even anger. 

Jon's own defensive and paranoid reaction makes him feel less guilty about it. They'd only come out here in the first place due to very specific instructions from Elias, and Jon has seemed… jumpy, even more than usual, ever since Elias had told them. Tim asked why here, why this park, why at night, and Elias had just cast a pointed look to Jon and said he would compensate them for the overtime. Tim had asked Jon the same questions once Elias was out of earshot (well, as close as he ever was to that, anyway), and Jon had given an even less informative answer, just gone pale and muttered something about having statements to read. 

He was sure that this particular field trip was pretty much just for Jon’s… benefit was an optimistic word and therefore not the one he would use, but whatever this was about, Jon knew something he wasn’t being honest about.

What else was new?

The idea of conversation wasn’t particularly alluring, though Tim had expected more of an attempt at it on Jon’s part than he’d gotten. These days, Jon’s MO was usually to avoid everyone he could, but if he found himself trapped into an interaction, he kept things vague, never really asking questions about anything that wasn’t either about work or steeped in a deep suspicion that made even answering, “how was your weekend?” feel like an interrogation. 

However, Jon hadn’t made an effort to exchange pleasantries, and Tim wasn’t about to point it out. Jon looked pale still, and there was a sort of stiffness to his posture that almost made Tim want to inquire about his well-being, but he’d held his tongue. It still stung to be lied to, even if he told himself he didn’t care, and he liked to avoid setting up those pins for Jon to knock down. So, they’d picked a spot by some picnic tables and dumpsters (a horrible configuration on the park’s part, really) and sat down to wait for Elias’ text informing them that they could come back to the Institute. 

He’d assured Tim that nothing would happen, that Jon just needed the nostalgia of a familiar place, and he didn’t have to even ask to know that was a question that would not be answered. 

Jon had been restless--anxious, even, moving around constantly and never committing to sitting in one spot for too long. 

He’d been sitting by the dumpsters, ignoring Tim, who had taken to just swiping aimlessly through dating apps on his phone with a vague sense of gnawing hollowness that only seemed to grow with every picture of a girl with long dark hair and glasses, when Jon cries out. Tim looks up to see him clutching his hand in pain, and there are already a few red drops of blood starting to ooze out from between his fingers. 

“What happened?” Tim demands, shifting forward in his seat but not standing. 

“Nothing,” Jon snaps reflexively, but he looks a bit embarrassed when he catches Tim’s gaze. “Some broken glass; shoved my hand into it when I tried to get up.” Tim nods. 

“Are you alright?” 

Predictably, Jon nods, and if Tim had thought he looked pitiful before, the cut makes his skin positively ashen rather than pale. “Just a little nick.” 

It’s not. They both know it. 

“Heard anything from Elias?” Tim asks with very little hope. 

“Nothing yet.” Jon crosses to sit down at the same bench Tim is occupying, kitty-corner to ensure that he’s as far away as possible even when he’s choosing proximity. 

Jon lets the cut bleed in a slow but steady trickle for another half hour. He uses the crumpled-but-clean tissue from Tim’s jumper pocket to apply gentle pressure, but every time he moves it to peek, blood fills the split in the skin again. 

“That’s really bleeding,” Tim points out in spite of himself, “It might need stitches, and in any case, it needs to be disinfected.” 

Jon shrugs wearily. 

“If we don’t stay until we get the word, he’ll only make us do this again.” 

Tim waits for an explanation of why that would be so horrible, but it doesn’t come. 

“Right, but at least then we’ll be doing this little stakeout when your fingers aren’t in ribbons.”

“We can’t leave—”

“If I tell Elias what happened, he’ll say the same thing. He’ll tell me to bring you to A&E, and we’ll try again a different day.” 

Jon almost laughs at that. “Are we talking about the same Elias?” 

Despite the joke, he’s even paler than before and Tim is a few seconds away from texting Elias to go to hell when his phone goes off--a message from the devil he’s spoken of that tells him that they may, at last, leave this place. 

“Alright, Jon, that’s our cue to move,” he announces, turning his phone around to show Jon the text because he knows that Jon won’t take his word for it. Not this Jon.

For all his resistance, Jon seems nothing but eager to leave this place as soon as he’s given the green light. Tim watches to make sure that Jon hasn’t lost so much blood he’ll faint when he stands (he hasn’t) and then walks ahead with a resolve Orpheus would envy to not look back to see if Jon is following. 

“You know,” he calls, admittedly a bit petulantly, over his shoulder as they walk to the tube station, “you don’t have to do everything Elias tells you to. He doesn’t always know best.” 

“I don’t do everything—,” he sighs, cutting off the defensive remark that might have made Tim laugh back when he still did that. “I do what I think is best.” 

“Oh, and that just so happens to be everything Elias says?” 

Jon prickles. “Sometimes he’s right.” 

“No,” Tim amends, “sometimes you’re just both wrong in the same way. It’s different.” 

“And you know so much better?” 

“I know to not let a filthy cut sit there and fester all night.” 

“Please, it’s barely been an hour. I would have left at some point.”

Tim is sure when he says, “you wouldn’t have.” 

“Why do you even care?”

“Deflection, how original,” Tim dodges. “You should learn some new moves, Jon; you're getting predictable.” What unsettles him, however, is the fact that Jon never asks questions to which he knows the answers, nor is he the type who might fish to hear someone say, “I care about you.” He probably doesn’t expect to hear it, anyway.

“You're not some damn martyr, you know,” he says, “for trying to save the world alone just because you've decided you can't trust anyone but yourself.”

Jon falters. “Why would I want to be a m—”

He trails off with a gasp, the sort that has Tim turning around despite himself. He looks around for whatever might have spooked him, following his gaze up to a house at the top of a hill a little ways away. There's nothing there, not that he can see. 

“What is it, Jon?” he demands impatiently. A seed of uncertainty roots in his gut when Jon doesn't answer, just keeps his eyes fixed on the house. His posture is stiff with outright fear. “Did you see something up there?” Jon shakes his head and shuffles his feet a bit like he wants to keep walking, but he doesn’t actually move forward, instead, just shifting his weight from foot to foot a bit unsteadily. In the dim light of the streetlamp, Tim can see that a thin sheen of sweat is beginning to break out over Jon’s forehead, and he’s gone white in the face. “Are you about to faint?” 

Defensiveness, he might expect, or a snappish, annoyed denial, but instead, Jon just flounders, mouth moving around words that die in his throat. His breath is catching in his chest as he reaches for the collar of his shirt, leaving very slight streaks of blood where he tugs uselessly at it. 

“Jon,” he commands, forcing himself to stand between Jon and the house, breaking his panicked stare, “say something. Talk to me. What is happening?” 

Jon can’t meet his eyes. As soon as he drags them from the house to try to look at Tim, his gaze starts to flicker back and forth rapidly, unfocused and hazy.

“I’m--I—stop,” he chokes, pulling air in and out in a way that can’t properly be called breathing and shoving Tim’s hands away when he tries to reach for the cut in the split second in which he stupidly thinks that might be the problem. 

“Is it the house?” Tim asks. He should have fucking known that Elias’ definition of ‘nostalgia’ couldn’t have been anything good. 

“It’s--it was--I can’t—,” he breaks off in several consecutive shuddering breaths, “can’t breathe—”

Tim hates, absolutely hates that he wants to roll his eyes when Jon tears up, not because he thinks this is stupid--not at all--but because Jon let it come to this and now, as much as Tim has sworn off picking up the pieces of Jon’s messes, he once again has no other choice. 

God, Jon is going to be the death of him. 

“You’re having a panic attack,” he surmises. Jon is hyperventilating, and he knows better than to try to touch him, paranoia aside. “Jon, can you--damn it, look at me—”

“Just shu—” he trails off with another heaving breath, “shut—,” and the next breath sounds horrifically more like a sob than anything else. Tim sits on the ground right there on the sidewalk, facing away from the house, and Jon drops to his knees shakily beside him. 

“You can breathe, Jon,” Tim soothes more roughly than he wishes to. “I know it doesn’t feel like it. In through your nose, or you’re going to pass out.” 

Jon, to his credit, is trying, but it’s still so fast, and he’s shaking and he’s got one hand clamped over his mouth so tightly that Tim is distantly worried he might actually get sick. The cut has reopened, but there’s no time to worry about that. “Name four things you can touch,” he commands. His voice is even and deep. Jon shakes his head. 

“I’m n--I can’t—”

“Four things. Come on, just four. I’ll start you.” He reaches out very slowly to Jon’s hand on the ground and ever so lightly strokes Jon’s pinkie finger with his own. 

“You,” Jon manages, chest still heaving.

“Good. That’s one.” 

“Grassrockdirt.” 

“That’s good. Now, three things you can hear.” 

“You,” Jon repeats, “your--voice.” 

“Yeah. Two more.” 

“My breathing,” he says. At least he’s acknowledging that he can do that, now. “Crickets.” 

“Perfect,” Tim encourages. “See? You’re okay. Two things you can smell.” Jon shakes his head, so Tim edges his hand just a little closer to Jon’s and smiles slightly when he doesn’t jerk it away. “And if you say me again, you’re walking home.” 

Jon actually manages to do a sad impression of a smile at that. “B-blood,” he manages. He doesn’t want to know how Jon can smell that and it’s probably psychosomatic, but it threatens to start the spiral all over again. 

“Something else.” 

“Grass,” Jon obeys. “Fresh--someone’s mowed their grass.” He reaches down and scatters some of the clippings upon which they’re sitting, finally managing to cough out a deeper breath. Tim allows him a beat to try to catch his breath. 

“How are you feeling, now? We can start at touch again, if you need to.” 

“No, I’m,” Jon says, then hesitates. “The worst has passed. Just a bit--shaky. Scattered.” 

Tim nods. “Understandable. Let’s just sit here a while.” 

He’s not quite looking forward to the alone time, so intimate and still close enough to touch hands even if they aren’t doing so anymore, but Jon very clearly isn’t in any shape to get to the tube station. He orders a cab instead and is more than happy to spend the time in silence, but Jon turns to him after he’s wiped the sweat from his forehead and tears from his eyes with his sleeve. 

“How did you know?” 

“What, that it was a panic attack?” Jon nods. “Had a mate in high school who used to get them. I didn’t know that you… but then, I wouldn’t, would I?” 

Jon is nothing if not unpredictable. “I don’t,” he hurries to say, but it’s not defensive in the way he expects--more like he’s rushing to ensure Tim he hasn’t hidden it from him. “I mean, I haven’t in years. I used to, when I was--I was 8 when I had the first, stopped when I was around 10, started up again in Uni, but… I haven’t had one since--well, the night before my last exam.” 

“Maybe you should see someone,” Tim suggests. It’s more to fill the silence than anything else. “It’s not a good sign for them to just start up again.” 

It seems like Jon wants to say something else, something about the house, but when he turns his head again to look at it, his breathing begins to pick up again and Tim finds himself reaching out his hand once more. 

“Not me,” he clarifies, “and not tonight. I’m not going to accuse you of hiding things from me just because you don’t want to have a meltdown in the cab.” 

Jon nods. “Thank you.” Tim laughs humorlessly, and Jon shakes his head. “I mean for--not just for--I—,” he sighs. “I wish I could just say, ‘you know what I mean,’ but I’ve ruined that, haven’t I?” 

Tim shrugs. He’s not going to lie, but he also doesn’t feel right picking this fight with Jon so vulnerable. 

“I think I can figure it out in this particular situation,” he says. “And you’re welcome.” 

The cab ride is silent and Tim leaves Jon to apply the antiseptic gel to his hand by himself. He needs to get home and if he has to watch Jon pour himself into a statement right after all that, has to watch him drown his own trauma in someone else’s--well, he can’t quite stomach that. 

Jon is still wearing the same slightly-bloody clothes when Tim arrives the next morning and he hates him for it. 


End file.
